García Camarillo, Cecilio

Activist, poet, publisher, editor, literary journalist, textual artist, script writer, radio personality, and cultural attaché, Cecilio García-Camarillo was a complete Chicano renaissance man, a gentle warrior whose cultural activism over the past quarter-century has transfigured Chicano literary culture. Cecilio has seventeen bilingual chapbooks to his credit and has created over five hundred "poemas visuales" - poster-sized frames of text swirled into rivers and patterns that graphically recall the forces that created them. He founded and edited two influential reviews, Magazín (1971-1972) and Caracol (1974-1977), which provided a forum for scores of new Chicano writers. His newsletter RAYAS (1978-1979) evolved into a weekly public radio show, "Espejos de Aztlán" (1979-present). To thousands of listeners of radio station KUNM (Albuquerque, NM), Cecilio was the gentle and persuasive voice of "Espejos de Aztlán," the longest running cultural program in the station’s history. But the poem was always García-Camarillo's favorite venue for the private voice of dream, nightmare, and transformation.

His long term association as a dramaturgy with "La Compañia Teatro de Alburquerque," has also earned him a place in the history of bilingual community theatre. With the enigmatic stage name of "Xilo," one of his major artistic collaborations was with "Mezcla," a group of artists and activists.

Cecilio García-Camarillo was born near Laredo, Texas in 1943. He graduated from the University of Texas, Austin, and, by the 1970s, established himself as one of the premier Chicano publishers of south Texas. In 1981 he received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship.

Source: Biography courtesy of Enrique R. Lamadrid.